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Schaeffer joins FAMU baseball staff

Right after Jamey Shouppe asked him to come to FAMU as its pitching coach, Frank Schaeffer had two concerns.

He wanted to know why Shouppe, a former pitching coach at Florida State for more than two decades, didn’t want to do the job himself. And he wanted to know how his son, Matthew, a pitcher that Shouppe recruited during the off season, felt about having him as his coach.

Shouppe explained that his mission to upgrade the FAMU program wouldn’t allow him time enough to give the Rattlers’ pitching staff what it really needed. And Schaeffer’s son felt it was a golden opportunity for his dad to coach on the college level.

That was enough for Schaeffer, who has a track record for producing college prospects from his years with a successful travel team, to join Shouppe’s staff as a volunteer.

Now he has the task of turning around one of the nation’s least successful pitching staffs. FAMU ranked No. 291 in team ERA (7.19) among the 296 Division-I programs last season.

The offer from Shouppe caught him off guard, said Schaeffer, 45, because he thought such an opportunity had passed him by. He said he’s also settled into his home-based job as a consultant.

“I had decided that I was going to spend some more time at home and not coach anymore,” he said. “Then, about two weeks after Coach Shouppe signed Matthew, he called me up and asked me if I had interest in it. I was floored.”

Shouppe and Schaeffer go back a ways, as Schaeffer was connected with several college coaches because of his youth team, All-American Prospects, which he co-founded more than 10 years ago.

Based in Palm Beach, his club won multiple wooden-bat national titles. Dozens of players from the program went on to become stars in college baseball. The list of 12 major-leaguers out of the program includes Paco Rodriguez of the Dodgers and Casey Kelly of the Padres.

“That’s a big part of it,” Shouppe said, explaining his reason for adding Schaeffer to his staff.

“He’s done just what we expected of him coming in,” Shouppe said. “He has been able to refine some of the guys’ mechanics. Not necessarily change, but refine to make sure we are getting the most that we can get out of our guys.

“Sometimes the most important part of pitching is just pitching; just knowing when to throw a strike or when to throw a ball.”

Schaeffer knows plenty about that. Not only as a coach, but as a former collegiate player who pitched for Tusculum and finished up his college career at Palm Beach Atlantic College.

He’s been working with the Rattlers since fall drills. His presence and teaching skills have invigorated the returning pitchers and the new ones as well, said sophomore William Carrasco.

“We actually want to be here; we want to do this for him,” Carrasco said.” I don’t think there has been anything like this in this program. We know we can do great things. It’s just a matter of getting it done.

“I think everyone has matured a little bit and he is doing a real good job of getting us ready for the season.”

Schaeffer has 15 pitchers, including four who are two-way players. Only two of them didn’t play last season when the Rattlers finished with a 7-47 record. Only one of them won three games.

As a staff, the Rattlers ranked No. 295 in walks, 290th in hits per inning (12.20), 276th in walks per nine innings (4.80), and 282nd in strikeouts to walks ratio (1.13).

So far, Schaeffer said he’s seen encouraging improvements, praising the players who returned after their struggles last year.

“I can’t imagine enduring 47 losses in a season,” he said. “For them to come back and say we are going to fix this and do better; that level of dedication inspires me. Whatever they felt last year, I want them to feel the opposite this year.”